Perhaps Washington coach Tyrone Willingham described it best. In the days leading up to the Sooners’ game against the Huskies, he was asked about OU’s offense. One play stuck out.

“The receiver was just like a lightning bolt up the sideline,” he said.

Willingham was talking about Ryan Broyles’ first catch in the Cincinnati game. It was a simple crossing route. OU quarterback Sam Bradford hit him in stride. Broyles made a defender miss and Willingham’s description was pretty exact.

It was the first of 10 catches Broyles has made in the last two games and most have been highlight-reel material.

The former Norman High All-Stater is averaging 22.6 yards per catch and 113.0 yards per game. No receiver in the program’s illustrious history has gotten off to a better start.

Yet, no one at OU is surprised either.

“I think it’s something that we’ve seen all summer with him,” quarterback Sam Bradford said. “He’s made plays in the spring and the summer, even in two-a-days. He’d make plays and everyone would kind of stop like, ‘Did he just do that?’ We knew it was coming.”

Players and coaches have been saying the same things about Broyles since last season. Since he arrived on campus there’s been talk about the little receiver that can make a secondary look foolish.

It’s hard to believe Broyles wasn’t a highly-touted prospect when he signed with OU in the winter of 2007. Sure, his early-February switch from Oklahoma State to OU turned into a statewide story. It didn’t cause much of a ripple in the national recruiting scene, though.

“I wasn’t highly rated,” Broyles said. “People just kind of looked at my height and weight and nothing else.”

At first glimpse, there’s isn’t much to him. He’s generously listed at 5-foot-11 and 175 pounds. He’s fast, but no one has ever touted Broyles for having world class speed.

He just has other things that are hard to measure with a stopwatch or weights.

“The game kind of slows down for him,” receivers coach Jay Norvell said. “He plays at a faster speed. And he acts like he’s been doing it for a long time. That’s unusual for a guy that hasn’t played a whole lot.”

Broyles’ two-touchdown performance in last Saturday’s 55-14 victory over Washington was the just the second game of his career.

But OU’s inner circle has expected big things from Broyles since they first fit him for a helmet.

He’d worked his way into a playing position last summer before an arrest on the eve of last year’s season opener got him suspended for the season and forced into redshirt.

That was a year that could have gone a number of different directions for Broyles. Redshirting is one of the hardest things for college players to do. After all, rarely is there a player OU recruits that wasn’t a prep star.

Broyles was at NHS, standing out as a receiver, running back, defensive back and kick returner from 2004-06. His freshman year at OU was spent doing those things on the practice squad.

He could have sulked and gotten himself in even more trouble.

“He was real down about it,” OU running back and former NHS teammate Mossis Madu recalled. “He thought he was off the team for sure. I kept telling him he was going to get through this … At first, he took it hard, then he settled down and took it as a time to better himself.”

He clearly did.

Broyles suited up for just one game last season, the Fiesta Bowl. It was a reward for his work on the practice squad. He spent most of December imitating Mountaineers quarterback Pat White.

The elusiveness Broyles showed made an impression.

“He was a better Pat White than Pat White,” defensive end Jeremy Beal said.

He made even more fans this past spring. He was only out there for two weeks before a broken collarbone put him on the sidelines. But an impression was made.

“I think it benefited me. I got a chance to get settled into college and get a year under my belt. I really only had to worry about school,” Broyles said.

Now defenses have to worry about him.

The OU record for touchdown catches in a season is 15, set by Mark Clayton in 2003. Broyles is well ahead of that pace. But so is wide receiver Juaquin Iglesias and tight end Jermaine Gresham.

Points have come pretty easily for the Sooners in the first three games. Odds are that pace will slow when Big 12 play begins in October.

Through the first three weeks of the season, however, Broyles has made an impression. Back in August, OU coach Bob Stoops said Broyles reminded of him Clayton.

In two games, he’s lived up to the comparison.

“Hopefully, he’ll have the consistency and the poise that Mark had to be such a great player,” Stoops said. “He’s not there yet, but he reminds you of that style of receiver, I guess is a fair way to say it at this point.”

John Shinn

366-3536

jshinn@normantranscript.com